GooG

I had received a question about possible available frequencies for local radio in Kortrijk.Neat.Actually there are none that are "open".Frequencies are tied to "approvals" to licencees and are granted with "permits". Some of them grant the operation (or exploit) to other parties not connected to their organization. This is legal according to the current law in Flanders, Belgium.Most of the local stations have 100 Watt of ERP. In Kortrijk there were 2 that got more broadcast power, 501 Watt ERP and 1995 Watt ERP.

So for the recent changes, and the interested person for "open" or free frequencies in Kortrijk, I was assigned the "free" question, I could tell them the following :

The former Contact 105.3 is taken by VBRO (STL from Brughes)The former Contact 104.9 now carries the program of "Family-Radio"

The local 106.4 MHz is off-air but this doesn't mean it is "open", it appears there is an issue with legal rights.

In Zwevegem nearby at 105.7 MHz Radio Europe has given up, their (weak) antenna that was located in the south of the community of Zwevegem and didn't perform very well for penetration in the city of Kortrijk.Rumour sounds as they have returned their permit to the Flemish authorities.That means it would not be available until the next round of public offering for FM frequencies (in 2016 at the earliest it seams, unless an intermittent round would be approved by government).

For the Kortrijk frequency it would mean that the legal composition would have to be altered after agreement of the current board and then they could be able to get back on air with an operative signal on FM. Right now the 106.4 MHz has been unused for quite some time now.

FM Frequencies are a squarce matter. That's why VRM looks into the good usage of it, according to the plan of frequencies that they have made up in 2003. They act as a kind of "watch dog".Right now there only two stations listed in Flanders as "off air" on their publicly available list.Because there is a law in Belgium about public availibity, they should revail the actual permitted broadcast powers and locations, of which they currently do not.

In Belgium, Sympatiek vzw (legal instance responsible for performance of a local radio station according to Flemish law) recently asked a modification from 5 kiloWatt (37 dBW) reduced to 1 kiloWatt (30 dBW). This is a bit more than half of the original coverage area (transmitting power works the logarithmic way yes). After reading the news message, a lot of people thought the radio station was forged to get this reduction in transmit power.It appears not.

In Flanders you have two separate things when broadcasting analog FM, there's a official recognition where you are entitled to broadcast, and then related to this you can get a broadcast permit. Most stations have only 100 Watts of ERP, some did get more in the latest round of assignments at the end of 2003.

If the legal entity of the broadcast organisation asked for a reduction of the broadcast coverage range (less FM power range), it may have to do with the thougth of having to pay less music artist licence fees ( "Sabam" , for Belgium - next to SIMIM and "billijke vergoeding", correct us if we are wrong)

This organisation calculates on maximum broadcast power, and not the effective "power" (= ERP, Effective Radiated Power) . In reality, a lot of these "high-powered" stations got a directional antenna pattern, leaving only maximum ERP power in one direction. (Mind : 100 Watt is to be considered micropower LPFM, 1000 Watts is double that coverage range and most of the so-called high-powered stations were granted with a very directional antenna pattern).

There are some questions about the official decision of the Flemish government instance to refuge the broadcast organisation's request to reduce power and change their location.In their response and decision, ° VRM talks about an 60 dB-contour which haven't appeared in the latest rules about local radio regulations (and what exactly do they mean in they report about that 60 dB, is that something like 60 dBu or 60 dBµV or 60 dBµV/m)

° This station has been broadcasting from a public broadcasting tower, were space has been rented before by VRT. Recently the ownership of the tower infrastructure was allocated to "Norkring" company in private ownership, making the public broadcaster no longer the owner of the broadcasting infrastructure.

° Rules for "local broadcasting" applies that the transmitter has to be on the city location for which the admittance has occurred, and the broadcast permit can not be moved to an adjacent town or city.Awkward, because there appear to be a lot of exceptions in the past where modications to the original broadcast plan was allowed, including technical broadcast as well as the way to their original intent to perform "local" transmissions and accompanying local content and news.None of those is really left over in Flanders, Belgium. Not for the locals, as the "law" has been altered and allowed most "stations" to make co-operations.

In reality it is simple, they use satellite reception for the local outlet transmitters, or they have PC computers available locally that get their music and other program items through FTP, and actually rebroadcast the programmed flow of "radio".

Back to the decision of the Flanders "media regulation" board, called VRM ...

° Apparently for this government instance "VRM" those city and community borders seem very important in the decision process to allow for changes,and this is pretty awkward for a "so-called" high power frequency with 5 kWatts ERP transmitting from the former VRT (public broadcasting) tower in Egem, Belgium (which now belongs to the private-owned company Norkring). In this case we are talking about 5 000 Watts of power, but directed solely to NW (north western) directional pattern.° The change for both power reduction and relocation of about 9 miles west, would have the result that the original local "region" of Egem would no longer be reached.Technically, with the original assigned directional antenna pattern at Egem tower, while taking this pattern from the new requested location in Hooglede, this assumption would be correct. ﻿

Because of the severe and strict limitation not to radiate any power to the south and eastern direction.If they would be allowed to broadcast the requested 1000 Watts of ERP with omnidirectional pattern, they would reach the "local" area of Egem, and thus the opposed objection would be irrelavant.

However, the "verdict" and decicsion of Flanders regulator (www.vlaamseregulatormedia.be) does not include any information about the antenna pattern.In fact, not any information is revealed on their site on how currently approved stations did get their actual broadcast permit and how it was adjusted compared with the original assignations (compared to the broadcast towers moved locations versus the orginally assigned).

So there is the restriction that local stations cannot move from one local city to another if this involves another community than which they were assigned for. Strange enough, because there are lots of exampled where it was approved before.

° There are 2 questions concerning this :- Why was a 107.9 from Torhout was approved to move southwards from Torhout to Ardooie? Southwards to the Wallonia area there is a station on this frequency (Mouscron / Moeskroen),

likewise for the involved frequency of this topic 93.6 ( also broadcasting at Tournai / Doornik, 30 km southwards of Egem)

Something doesn't fit in their explanation about movement of transmitter sites. Rules appear to changes every once they make a "decision" public available. It appears that there is no solid technical expertise available. Why can some broadcast towers be moved and others are refused?

- In Flanders there were only 2 local radio areas (so called "high power" 2 to 5 kiloWatts) planned that had 2 placenames in their "community" name : one of them was locality 92 Kortrijk/Harelbeke and then another one in the Leuven area (Vlaams-Brabant). Only the one in Harelbeke was effectively moved to Kortrijk, maybe in advance included in "the plans"??

More questions and remarks possible, but none of them are likely to have any impact on the resulting situation on the local FM operations for now. The next change on frequencies and general plan has been delayed to the year 2016.

After 17 years after its inception in Flanders to propose an answer to the free radio´s by public radio VRT, they replace Donna by MNM.Last Friday, early presentator Michel Follet (who opened the radio in it first hours) could close the station´s last hour. In a later interview to TV, he called the change a bad move.Let´s hear in a minute what the new beginning will give :)